4G tablet shipments in India rose by 55% sequentially in the September quarter with iBall leading shipments, but total tablet shipments grew only 7.8%, even as vendors prepared the channel to cater to the consumer demand for upcoming festive month, according International Data Corporation (IDC) report Thursday.Niharika Banerjee | ET Bureau | November 24, 2016, 13:40 IST

MUMBAI: 4G tablet shipments in India rose by 55% sequentially in the September quarter with iBall leading shipments, but total tablet shipments grew only 7.8%, even as vendors prepared the channel to cater to the consumer demand for upcoming festive month, according International Data Corporation (IDC) report Thursday.

Tablet shipments including slate and detachables clocked 1.06 million in the July-September period, remaining stagnant over the same period last year.

“4G tablets account for almost one-fourth of total tablet shipments in CY Q3 2016 in relative to 15.3% in the first quarter of this year,” said Karthik J, senior market analyst, client devices, IDC India.

Analysts at the firm added that tablet shipments are expected to drop sequentially in October-December quarter, coming off from the previous quarter's spike for festive season. Detachables are expected to continue with healthy shipments in the last quarter of this year to account for little over 5% of total tablet shipments in 2016 against 2.7% last year.

"In 2016 total tablet shipments is likely to decline marginally over 2015," said Navkendar Singh, senior research manager, IDC India.

For the September quarter, Datawind continues to be the top tablet vendor in India with a market share of 26.1% in the third quarter of 2016. With a fully functional second manufacturing plant in India, increasing retail presence and television sales in deeper pockets of India, Datawind’s volume has grown 73% over the same period last year, the report said.

Samsung tablets maintained its second position with a 26.2% growth in the third quarter over previous quarter this year with its newly launched J max that has received a good response from consumers.

At the third spot is iBall that grew marginally by 2.9% sequentially in Q3 2016. However, its shipments have dropped 7.5% year-on-year, the report pointed out.

Lenovo stood at fourth place with 15.5% sequential growth in July-Sept 2016 and 13.3% over the same period last year. The report says that its consumer shipments grew over 50% in July-Sept 2016 owing to the festive season.

Micromax retained its place in top 5 although its shipments remained flattish over previous quarter and with a 39% year-on-year drop. "Vendor’s shift in focus from Detachable to entry level clamshell notebook category has resulted in negligible presence in detachable category in recent quarters," the report said.

"Commercial segment continues to grow at a healthy pace accounting to over one-fifth of total tablet shipments in CY Q3 2016 with key contributors being Education, Government and large Enterprise segments," said Kartik J.

"Commercial segment also contributed to majority of detachable shipments in Q3 2016 driving the product category’s volume to almost double over previous quarter," he added.

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